to live his highest beliefs to the utmost, helping him in his strivings, make clearer to him the beauty of his own aims: Hence, even as I want all good men and true to bid me a hearty, an earnest, a sincere "God-speed!" in my own strivings, so do I, with all my heart, bid my many and diverse-believing, diverse-aiming friends Godspeed in their endeavors.

If, for the public good, I should ever be called upon to pass judgment upon any of the actions that are the result of the beliefs of my neighbors and friends, and I, with my fellow jurors, deemed these actions subversive of the public good, I could unite with my fellows in suppressing these actions. But this would be done with a perfectly open heart, without malice, without censure even, without any presumption, without any interference with the principle I have sought clearly to state and exemplify. It would be done as the result of our united judgment upon a matter of public policy — not a fixed, established assurance of right or wrong, but as a matter wherein, for the benefit of others, we regarded the restriction of an inherent and God-given freedom a justifiable act.

Herein, to my mind, lies the power of the argument of the political prohibitionists. They seek to prohibit men from the exercise of their undoubted right to manufacture and sell alcoholic

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stimulants their undoubted right provided it could be done without injury to the bodies and souls of their fellow-beings. No one can claim an inherent right to injure his neighbor willfully and deliberately. No one can claim a God-given right to transgress God's own laws. Those who believe in God believe He has ordained laws for the government of all that He has created. The interpretation of the "moral law" as handed down to us in the Scriptures is, in the main, similar in all creeds in Christendom, and practically the same among all who, without so-called creeds, believe in the brotherhood of man.

Upon those points wherein men have conscientiously differed there have been instances where the ruling majority has restricted or taken away the rights of the minority to put their beliefs into practice, because the consensus of opinion has decided such acts to be contrary to public policy or public good, but it does not necessarily follow that the interference was based upon incontrovertible ideas of right or wrong.

My contention is that no man or body of men has the inherent right to interfere with the beliefs and acts of their fellow-beings who are sincerely and conscientiously seeking to love God with all the heart and their neighbors as themselves, but in all countries where the majority is supposed to rule it is expedient to submit to prevailing cus

toms and laws unless conscience imperatively demands otherwise. In any case, however, it does not necessarily follow that the majority is always in the right and the minority in the wrong, especially in religious matters.

CHAPTER XI

OUT OF DOOR RADIANCIES

I

I WANT to radiate a constant, never-failing love for God's great out of doors at all times, in all seasons, under all conditions, in all moods. want to understand Nature, to be one with her, to feel with her, expand with her, be reserved with her, be exuberant with her. I want to realize and radiate my kinship with everything that exists in Nature; I am a part of this great whole, all of which is an expression of a great thought of the great God. By making myself a part of Nature I am able to make allies of all the forces of Nature, and this fact I want to radiate with power and emphasis. I would teach both by word, influence, and unconscious radiation that we are able to ally ourselves with all the powers of God as manifested in the world around us. I have learned that, no matter for whom else the sun may shine, it shines expressly for me. I would have you learn that it shines expressly for you. Whatever its power it belongs to you. Claim it! And so with all the forces. The winds blow for you, the

flowers bloom for you, the stars glisten for you, the fruits grow for you, the trees clothe themselves in beauty for you, the birds sing for you, the sunsets are glorious for you, and the sunrises gild the mountain tops with reddish gold for you, the grass grows for you, the creeks sing, the rivers flow, and the seas roar for you; the forces of good are all yours, you are allies with them, and what they are you are, what power they possess, you possess.

What marvelous vivification comes into the body, mind, and soul of man when he realizes this stupendous fact. He no longer stands alone on the earth. God, to many men and women, is far away, unseen, unknowable, but through His world in Nature we can touch Him, realize Him, learn to know Him, and while we are learning this greatest of great facts we are becoming stronger, more self-reliant, more full of power, more optimistic, more sure of our own footing on earth.

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A man may not say of a palace, a house, a garden, a yacht, a fortune, this, these, are mine, but we may each and all the vilest drunkard, the most wretched harlot, the near-suicide, and the nigh-insane, as well as the poverty-stricken and the oppressed -say and know "the sun is mine, the stars, the rain, the sweetness of the flowers, the blessedness of God's great gift of life. Therefore, I am not poor, I am not forsaken, I am not